Ms Bhutto is the fourth member of her family to die an unnatural death. Her father, founder of the PPP and former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 by the country's military dictatorship.

Her youngest brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, died in 1985, aged 28, in his apartment in Nice. His family maintain that he was poisoned. Her other brother, Murtaza Bhutto, was killed in a police shoot-out in Karachi in 1996.

Ms Bhutto's 25 year-old niece, Fatima Bhutto, is Murtaza's daughter. She is a writer for the The News in Pakistan and a harsh critic of her aunt. She called Ms Bhutto "the most dangerous woman in Pakistan" and was vocal in her opposition of Ms Bhutto's return to Pakistan.

Fatima lives in Karachi with her stepmother, Ghinwa Bhutto, Murtaza's widow, and her half-brother, Zulfiqar Bhutto Junior. Ghinwa is estranged from her Bhutto in-laws and runs her own faction of the PPP.

Q&A: the murder of Benazir Bhutto

Times South Asia Correspondent asks who had most to gain from killing the Pakistan People's Party leader

Multimedia

• Video: Bhutto assassinated

• Bhutto: the background, legacy and life

• Pictures: death of Benazir Bhutto

BACKGROUND

• Pakistan in chaos as Benazir Bhutto assassinated

• Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Main suspects

• Obituary: Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007

• Can democracy survive Bhutto killing?

Related Links

• Christina Lamb: my life with Benazir

• The making of a martyr

• Bhutto 'died after hitting head on car roof'

Mumtaz Bhutto, Ms Bhutto's uncle and the head of the 700,000-strong Bhutto clan, has always been hostile to Ms Bhutto because, it is said, he felt it should have been him at the head of the PPP. Most recently, he said Ms Bhutto had betrayed the family name by engaging in talks with President Musharraf.

Ms Bhutto had three children, Bilawal Bhutto, 19, Bakhtawar Bhutto, 17, and Asifa Bhutto, 14. They live in Dubai with Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, a highly controversial figure in Pakistan. He has spent a total of 11 years in prison on charges ranging from corruption to murder and is known as "Mr Ten Per Cent" in Pakistan for his alleged habit of extortion.

Ms Bhutto's sister, Sanam Bhutto, born in 1957, is the last remaining child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his wife, and Ms Bhutto's mother, Begum Nusrat Bhutto. Sanam lives in London.

Begum Nusrat Bhutto took control of her husband’s party after his death. She was soon eclipsed by her ambitious daughter and has not been seen in public in recent years because of illness.

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